


shellshock

by Sahoin



Series: muriel shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 22:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15398475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sahoin/pseuds/Sahoin
Summary: Being at ground zero of your homeworld's destruction leaves a mark on anyone, even the best of us. [Set early ME3.]





	shellshock

**Author's Note:**

> i finished dragon age, my brother told me to play mass effect even tho i don't like space, and now here i am several weeks later crying about garrus vakarian's stupid beautiful face. amazing.

She watches Earth burn in her dreams. 

Fire has never been a stranger in her nightmares. It's a primal piece of humanity to be enthralled by flames, by the flicker and dance of orange, an enhancer of life and bringer of death, but this, this is more. This is a brand upon her. The fires of Elysium burning would stick behind her eyes, joined later by the blaze of the Citadel, the exploding wreckage of her ship, her crew — damn _family_ in all but blood, good people, the _best..._

And now Earth. She watches Earth burn and she can't breathe, old and new nightmares blending together. She watches Earth burn while the debris of the Normandy SR-1 bobs around her, her oxygen hissing into the vacuum, dark spots hovering and flickering in her vision until the sight of the blackened planet is oblitered.

It's been months since kicking awake with a gasp has done her any good beyond just reminding her she's alive again, but this time her bare foot connects with hard turian plating, elbow smacks against keelbone. The resulting arc of pain through her arm _really_ tosses her into awareness, hissing and grimacing.

"Ahh, Shepard, sorry—"

She shakes her head, cuts him off. "No, ah, not, not your fault, humans have a nerve there, _fuck,_ tingles and hurts like hell when we hit it..."

She's rolled away from him in her attempts to shake loose from her tangled blanket, but now he tentatively curls around her back, a long lanky arm slipping around the bottom of her ribcage. He kisses the back of her neck, mandibles fluttering lightly against her loose hair. 

"Breathe, Shepard," he whispers, because fuck, he knows her too well. Her heart aches again, eyes sting with how much she's missed his presence during her stint under house arrest. Missed the duel-toned vibration of his voice, the security of his sturdy, alien frame.

"Shepard?"

She squeezes her eyes shut, every metaphorical crack in her hull creaking under the pressure in her chest. Her breath hitches.

"Do you see Palaven?" she asks him. God, but her voice doesn't sound like her own, wobbly and fragile. It reminds her of those first months after her resurrection, when every piece of herself felt off, like a room with all the furniture shifted two inches to the left. Still present, still ostensibly in place, only — not. Subtly off. Subtly wrong. 

If she's honest, that sensation's never really gone away. 

Garrus's arm tightens around her midsection, breath puffing in a heavy exhale against the nape of her neck. "Yeah," he admits. "Not really... something one forgets easily. Did you, ah... see Earth?"

She nods, some small, wounded sound escaping her throat. And God, poor Garrus, she thinks, now having to deal with a weepy human. Turians must have some form of venting pain or grief, but tears — tears don't really seem like something they're equipped to shed. 

Shepard gulps down a breath and tries to pull herself back together, lace these fracturing emotions back into some semblance of order. She's a fucking soldier, for chrissakes, she's a soldier and a Spectre and a war hero and, and — she has to keep it together, she knows, because if _Commander Shepard_ acts like the world is ending then everyone else will know just how fucking hopeless this war truly is. 

"Shep," Garrus is saying, concerned, tugging gently on her side, "Shepard, look at me, please?"

She flops over, still half-tangled in the sheets and still trying not to cry. He scoots down the bed a few inches to match the level she's laying at and bends his head forward, resting his temple to hers. His hand comes up to stroke over her hair, smoothing it gently. 

"You're not alone," he offers softly. "I won't give you platitudes we both don't — don't feel truth in, but Shepard, we're in this together. I meant that. I'm coming into hell right with you."

She swallows down a hiccupped sob before it can escape her, cracking her eyes open to find him watching her. He doesn't have eyebrows, really, to draw together in human concern, but she's definitely gotten good enough at reading turian emotions to see the honesty and the worry on his countenance. The affection.

Shepard can accept that. Accept togetherness as his reassurance, the only kind of reassurance that can really ring true in a reality of Reapers and burning homeworlds. She curls forward, eyes falling shut again as she reaches out to rest her hands against the warm plates of his chest. 

"Hold me," she whispers, and Garrus is swift to pull her close.

**Author's Note:**

> im still stunned i got invested enough to churn out a fanfic for the first time in yearrrs omg


End file.
